I wish you'd quit harping on that…

Yesterday I went to Duluth for work. I enjoy going to the other sites around the state; it's very much preferable to sitting in the dingy basement with no natural light and flies and no air conditioning. On the other hand, it's sitting in this dank hole that is most conducive to my blogging, so there is a tradeoff. I go through these bloggage cycles; I have periods where everything is easy and the writing goes well and quickly and I have plenty of time to surf and blogging is a breeze then. Other days I don't have as much time to surf, which means that I don't have the time to come up with as many cool links and nothing exactly fits. Today is in the middle. In fact, today is just a big tangent and I'll just go through what happened and you can see how my brain works.

There's this member of MeFi who goes by the name Gluechunk. On 1142 he goes by Gluey. Gluey made me think of this debater I knew from Eastern New Mexico University who went by Glue Boy. I don't know what Glue Boy's real name is, although he debated with Matt Barretto for awhile, and we got along well. Glue Boy and Matt ran this case that was to ban the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project, otherwise known as HAARP. HAARP was known as having the most ridiculous impacts I've ever heard from any debate case, with the possible exception of some of the Artificial Life scenarios. Or the Omega Point. What kind of weird impacts, you ask? Well, let's see. There's mind control, weather control, implanted memories, you get the idea. That's just the nice ones. Don't forget the "weapon of Mass Destruction" angle. (incidentally, WMD is the High School topic next year, so get ready for HAARP, kiddos!)

Anyway, so I thought of Glueboy, that made me think of HAARP, which made me think of HARP. HARP is the High Altitude Research Program, which was a joint US-Canadian Supergun project. By the time it was canceled, HARP had fired projectiles 180km up there. Yeah, that's pretty high. An interesting subnote to HARP; the main scientist, a guy named Gerald Bull, had to go somewhere to find work after it was canceled. So he wound up working with South Africa, which eventually led to his being jailed for illegal arms transfers in 1980. After he got out, he went around selling his services to the highest bidder until he wound up in Iraq just prior to the Gulf War. He worked on the Babylon supergun and a Scud cluster firing mechanism, and because of this work was assassinated by the Israelis in 1990.

Of course, both of these things reminds me of the Harp Seal, which is that cute white coated one that only the meanest people ever could possibly club. Also, Harp Lager, which is an ok lighter Irish beer. So, that's kind of the way I blog. I get fixated on something that interests me, and get some links for it, and just keep writing.

More than one way to skin a cat

Apparently there is some research that suggests that owning cats can give you schizophrenia. It's a well known stereotype that crazy people have cats, but now I guess the cats make the person crazy.

More great news from the Dalai Lama's visit to Minnesota; our governor may be the first ever to ask His Holiness if he's ever seen Caddyshack.